Internet giants call on US government to keep web democratic

Google, Facebook and Twitter, as well as dozens of other influential
technology businesses, have written an open letter to the US government
criticising proposed legislation that would undermine the democratic nature
of the internet

A group of internet giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter have written an open letter to the US government criticising proposed legislation that would undermine the democratic nature of the internet.

The Federal Communications Commission is considering legislation that would allow ISPs to charge higher fees from internet companies to guarantee that their traffic was given priority over other traffic. This could potentially leave some websites or companies struggling to provide an adequate service to users.

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said that reports of the demise of “net neutrality” – the concept that all internet traffic is treated equally - were "flat out wrong". But many believe that coming laws would be the thin end of the wedge.

Most of the world’s largest internet companies have now signed an open letter to the FCC reminding it that the internet has “fuelled economic growth” and calling on it to protect the internet as an “open platform for speech and commerce”:

“The innovation we have seen to date happened in a world without discrimination. An open internet has also been a platform for free speech and opportunity for billions of users,” said the letter.

“According to recent news reports, the Commission intends to propose rules that would enable phone and cable internet service providers to discriminate both technically and financially against internet companies and to impose new tolls on them. If these reports are correct, this represents a grave threat to the internet.

“Instead of permitting individualised bargaining and discrimination, the Commission’s rules should

protect users and internet companies on both fixed and mobile platforms against blocking, discrimination, and paid prioritisation, and should make the market for internet services more transparent. The rules should provide certainty to all market participants and keep the costs of regulation low.”

Other companies putting their name to the letter include eBay, Amazon, Foursquare, Kickstarter, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Netflix, Reddit, Yahoo! and Zynga.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, yesterday warned that undermining net neutrality would close off huge parts of the web at a stroke, and prevent new services from ever being able to break through.

He said that although the Mubarak regime’s turning off of all Egyptian internet services focused public attention, many still took the web for granted.